ECHO

I have been a little reluctant about reviewing this album, because there is a lot of material here. I have listened to it several times, but it doesn't stick with me a whole lot. You might say that it isn't that memorable. This is also my first experience at listening to KrautRock. I can honestly say that this will also be my last. I don't really like this style of prog at all.

First of all, the band stays on a musical idea far too long. Here is the concept. Take a riff start playing it over and over, then improv for awhile. This is the kind of thing garage bands do all the time.

The first song starts off with what sounds like an out of tune guitar. Achim Riechel begins playing the echo guitar and it develops from there if you will. I did like the last part the best, where it sounds like people are being shot to death. I wondered if it was a reference to the time of Hitler.

The second and third songs are connected, but Achim split the two up by title. Nothing too memorable at all here. The most memorable part was where the second song ended and the third song began, with children playing. They do some slow to fast stuff and it is not too bad, but that's about it.

"Echo of the Future" has some interesting electronic stuff on it. The band gets wild with it and it does sound kind of cool, but dated.

"Echo of the Past" has an acapella section that is way toooooooooooooooooooooo loooooooooooooooooooong! They could have shortened that part by at least five minutes.

I was disappointed with it. They could have injected so many more musical ideas than they did. Too much song for too little creativity. I have to give this Krautwork 2 stars, for lack of content.